APW19980210.0035 NEWS NEWSWIRE President Eduard Shevardnadze narrowly escaped an assassination attempt that left three people dead, and he said afterward that opponents at home and abroad were intent on destabilizing the former Soviet republic. About 10 to 15 gunmen firing automatic rifles and grenades ambushed Shevardnadze's motorcade as the president was returning home Monday night. The president's armored Mercedes caught fire and was badly damaged along with the other cars during a 10-minute shootout. ``It was a military operation, a well-planned one,'' Shevardnadze said on national television. ``There are forces within Georgia and outside it that are seeking to destabilize the country.'' The attack was the second assassination attempt against Shevardnadze in less than three years and it punctuated the volatile political climate in the Caucasus Mountains, where several conflicts are still simmering. ``I don't exclude the possibility of international terrorism,'' the president added. With providing evidence, Shevardnadze claimed the latest attack could be the work of former Georgian security chief Igor Giorgadze, whom the president blames for a 1995 assassination attempt. Giorgadze fled to Russia to escape arrest, and he has been living near Moscow despite Georgia's repeated demands for his extradition. ``Such impudent actions could have taken place because the chief organizer of the terror act of August 29, 1995, is still living in Moscow,'' Shevardnadze said of Giorgadze. ``He is leading a great life there, protected by his guards at his dacha.'' Shevardnadze said one attacker and two of his bodyguards were killed Monday night, including the man who helped protect him during the 1995 attempt on his life. ``I am OK,'' the 70-year-old Shevardnadze told President Geidar Aliyev of Azerbaijan, who called to express concern about the attack. Shevardnadze has led his native Georgia since 1992, shortly after it gained independence in the Soviet breakup. Internationally, he is best known as the Soviet foreign minister who helped orchestrate perestroika under former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Since independence, Georgia has been wracked by civil war, crime and a feeble economy, and Shevardnadze has made many enemies while trying to crack down on assorted warlords and secessionists. On Monday night, Shevardnadze was heading home to his official residence in the southern part of the capital Tbilisi when gunmen hiding behind trees opened fire, police said. Shevardnadze's armored car was riddled by bullets and hit by three grenades, according to government security chief Vakhtang Kutateladze. While the president's security team returned fire, a police car took Shevardnadze to his residence, about a kilometer (.6 mile) away. The attackers escaped aside from the one who was killed. He was identified as an ethnic Chechen living in southern Russia, police said. The 1994-6 war between Russia and Chechnya was waged not far from Georgia's border, but Georgia had no direct involvement in that conflict. Police and troops flooded the scene of the Monday night attack, searching vehicles and buildings afterward. Two tanks stood guard at the scene, which was illuminated with floodlights. In the 1995 attempt on Shevardnadze's life, he was cut by flying glass when a bomb exploded in his motorcade as he was leaving for a ceremonial signing of the country's constitution. Shevardnadze also had several close calls during Georgia's 1993 war in the breakaway Abkhazia region. He went to the front line and survived several near-misses from shells. The conflict with Abkhazia remains unresolved. The separatists took control of the northwestern province on the Black Sea and are seeking independence. Russian troops have kept government and Abkhazian forces apart for the past several years, but there's been no real progress on a political settlement. Georgia's most serious problems are internal, but the country is also surrounded by lands in turmoil. Chechnya is situated just to the northeast. And to the south, Armenia and Azerbaijan have been feuding for years over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. (md/gm)